The U.S. Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a key report today on student science achievement called The Nation's Report Card: Science 2000.

The report details the national- and state-level performance of fourth, eighth, and 12th graders on the science portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the nation's only continuing survey of student achievement in core subject areas.

The data in today's report are comparable with data from 1996, when the current NAEP science framework was first used. Overall, the report shows that the average scores of fourth and eighth graders in 2000 were essentially unchanged from 1996, while scores for 12th graders have declined slightly.

In a press release, the NSTA said it "considers the results more disheartening news for the science education community, which is struggling to focus the nation's attention on the importance of science education and the changes needed to reform it."

"You can't expect to see big changes in student achievement when we haven't made big changes in the way students learn science," NSTA President Harold Pratt said in the release.

For more information, click on one of the following links:

• Go to the full NCES report.
• Read NCES's press release summarizing the results.
• Read NSTA's press release responding to the report.
• Read an Associated Press story about the report.